Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums Showcase and Stories, Petroliana Shell marketing story I heard

Thought I would share an interesting story I heard.

My father worked for Shell Oil for a number of years starting back in the 60's. One night at dinner he was talking with some old timers and the subject of the old Shell clamshell gas globes came up in conversation. A couple of the old timers started talking about how Shell changed marketing campaigns the contractors were instructed to "destroy" all the prior campaign glass globes. Many were destroyed, during the new Shell marketing campaign, but some gas station owners kept them as tokens for around the shop or at house over the years.

Thought that was interesting and wanted to share with the forum.

Smokey1
Austin,TX

hey Smokey--

I had an old timer tell me about his father, who owned a gas station as well. Evidently, his dad had originally ran a Magnolia station and when Mobil acquired Magnolia, the Mobil field reps were instructed to destroy anything with Magnolia imaging on it...

This guy's father had a set of Magnolia globes set up in his station, and supposedly the Mobil rep happened to come by and shot all the globes out out with a pea shooter. His dad even had to sweep the mess up...

Crazy, huh?

Many years an older fellow told me that shortly after he went to work in a STANDARD BULK PLANT. A foreman told him & 2 others to get sledge hammers & fallow him. They went into a large storage building & were told to DESTROY everything that has RED CROWN printed on it. Signs, Globes, Boxes etc. Said it took them 3-4 days to remove the smashed mess.

A friend East of L.A. [frankpl knows him] worked for his dad's service station repair business. He has told similar stories about taking truck loads of all kinds of outdated pumps to the Dump. Pumps were loaded standing up, then push them off the the truck at the landfill. They would see how far they could throw old pump plates.

Hey Dick, is that our tall friend?

YEP.
Would like to have seen him put the Roman in the loft of his garage !

Seems like a common marketing campaign among various oil companies. Well, at least some folks had the right idea and did not distroy some automotive history.

Years ago I found an old bulk plant that had hundreds of old pumps. Also, in one building the attic was full of NOS ad glass, computers, lead signs, and new sheet metal. The guy told me they had to clear a road so they took a track loader and shoved some of the pumps into multiple piles. As far as I know the piles are still there but the 100's of clean original pumps and parts are long gone.

He told me that he assembled the roman up there

I started driving for Shell in the 60's--a district manager told me that one of his first jobs with Shell was using a mallet to break the Shell globes as they were removed and taken to a common place for disposal.I think it was in the Chicago area.Pretty well backs up the Smokey1 story.

Look on the bright side of all these stories.....if they didn't destroy most of it, all the stuff that we collect wouldn't be worth squat ! LOL

...his dad should have made that Mobil rep sweep his teeth up...

Is that why ONE guy i hear about is always breaking a globe?? Makes the other ones more valuable! Makes sense to me!

...think how much better our collections would be if they hadn't destroyed stuff during 'reimaging'...

I heard that a last week, JJ called a guy about a globe for sale, and headed out the next day to get it. That same day, after the call but before he arrived, another globe the guy had got broken. Coincidence? I think not...

Wes

holocaust ........ haunting.........